News from Mull: According to the BBC, the chick was pushed by a rival: "Experts have said this type of behaviour has never been recorded in Scotland before.”
Edit: At Santa Cruz Island, California, a sub-adult bald eagle attacked two 7-week-old bald eagle chicks in 2008. "`This is a rare occurrence, I have never seen anything like this in my career as an eagle biologist,´ said Dr. Peter Sharpe with the Institute for Wildlife Studies.” Read more at the Channel Islands Live Eagle Cam Forum. Another bald eagle snatched an osprey chick from the nest in 2016 (thanks for the link to b.h-p). Video here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M0qyVYrafIY
“Terror struck the Pelican Harbor bald eagle nest on Santa Cruz Island as a sub-adult bald eagle attacked the two 7-week-old chicks. Whether it was trying to carry them off or just knock them off, we're not sure, but both chicks were drug off the nest by this juvenile eagle.” Source: YouTube video description (PH - Skye & Spirit's Ordeal - From Attack to Rescue), published by HulaBunee, 20 May 2008
In Meløy municipality, Nordland county (Norway), a young White-tailed eagle was found dead below the nest in June 2014. Cause of death: unknown. Looduskalender forum member fireblade 1 recorded in 2011 the moment when an eagle destroyed a clutch of mallard eggs in an abandoned Wte nest in Estonia, see video below. Maybe the behaviour which could be recorded in Scotland recently is more common than previously thought?
Footage of sea eagle raiding Estonian "camera nest"
According to the University of Oulu, Finland has two White-tailed Eagle populations: “The Finnish White-tailed Eagle population is genetically divided into two subpopulations, one of which nests on the coast and the other in Lapland.” The research of Suvi Ponnikas shows “that the (…) species is philopatric, ie. it tends to return to or remain near a particular site or area.”
See also: Genetic structure of an endangered raptor at individual and population levels by Suvi Ponnikas, Laura Kvist, Tuomo Ollila, Torsten Stjernberg, Markku Orell
Conservation Genetics, December 2013, Volume 14, Issue 6, pp 1135-1147
Three quite dramatic videos, published by Carnyx Wild at vimeo, show the adventure of the sea eagle chick which was pushed out of the nest at the Isle of Mull by another immature eagle. Check out also the interesting explanations.
A new study shows that lead in hunting bullets is dispensable (Performance of Lead-Free versus Lead-Based Hunting Ammunition in Ballistic Soap. By Felix Gremse, Oliver Krone, Mirko Thamm, Fabian Kiessling, René Hany Tolba, Siegfried Rieger and Carl Gremse, published 16 July 2014, Plos One).
Lead poisoning is still a major cause of death in White-tailed Eagles.
Video by Madis Leivits, published at YouTube 20 January 2014
According to the Golden Eagle Trust, the chick from the nest in Lough Derg near Mountshannon wasn't the only White-tailed Eagle chick to hatch in Ireland "(one also hatched in West Cork), but was the only one to make it all the way to fledging. (…) Stay safe out there a cailín, beir bua:-)”
A new report on the White-tailed Eagle population of Mull, written by RSPB Scotland Mull Officer Dave Sexton, is available on the website of the local bird club. According to Sexton, the threats ”have changed from the early days of egg collectors (who haven’t completely gone away but the threat has slowly diminished) to irresponsible photographers who feel they are above the law and put a photo above the welfare of the bird.” Click here to read the article.
A Dutch juvenile female WTE, ringed in the Biesbosch National Park on May 8th this year, was sighted on the island of Texel on August 28th, some 200 km away from her natal area:
News from the young Irish White-tailed Eagle: According to the Golden Eagle Trust, the fledged chick “is doing great and starting to explore her environment but still hasnt gone further that 1km from her nest site as yet (...)”. Pictures of the Mountshannon eagle family, taken recently by Arthur Ellis, can be found on Facebook, Golden Eagle Trust, 26 August https://www.facebook.com/pages/Golden-E ... 4808950774
Blog about of the travels of wandering juvenile white tailed eagles originating from national park De Biesbosch in the Netherlands, written by one of the forest rangers of the national park (in Dutch):